More chastity in the news

Seeing as how many things that first show up in porn make it into the mainstream, I’m wondering when male chastity devices will start showing up on bad sitcoms.

I mention this because at last week’s AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and Adult Novelty Expo, the Millers (or more correctly, AL Enterprises) was there to show off their now well-known line of chastity devices. I missed it this year, since the budget here at Edge of Vanilla Labs didn’t seem to allow for “travel” in the research category; fortunately, the Las Vegas Review Journal had a few things to say:

In equally positive news, depending on your perspective, Las Vegas-based AL Enterprises is marketing a male chastity device that retails for $150. (Answer to obvious question: plastic tubes in various sizes, locking rings and padlocks.)

“It puts control of the couple’s sexuality into the key-holder’s hands,” said Nikki Yates, co-corporate director.

I really like the matter-of-fact reporting, as opposed to some of  the “WTF is this?” reporting seen last year.

They have a really nice looking booth, by the way.

They touched on something that I’ve wondered about, though: The sales numbers.

About 80 percent of the company’s customers are couples, she said. About 95 percent of the devices are purchased by men, but usually because the man’s partner thinks it’s a good idea.

AL works with five distributors, in addition to direct sales through its website, cb-6000.com.

I’m curious as to how they get those kinds of numbers. If 95% per cent of buyers are male, how do they know that 80% are married or partnered? I don’t remember seeing any survey on their website.

But wait – how many are they selling? The answer is still elusive.

Christi Morrell, co-corporate director, said the 13-year-old company’s sales increase 12 percent to 15 percent each year.

“The economy hasn’t affected us,” Yates said, adding that buyers at AVN seem more receptive to different products than in previous years.

I have noticed, though, that compared to 5 or 6 years ago, it’s fairly easy to find online porn (pictures or videos) with a man in a chastity device. They are still primarily in BDSM situations, but during a  long afternoon   few minutes on Youporn, Redtube, Xhamster, etc., it doesn’t take much effort find male subs wearing chastity devices for their cruel mistresses. When you think of some of the other things that have transitioned into more mainstream media (vibrators, dildos, fetish gear, etc.) then maybe it’s not such a stretch to imagine plastic and steel devices being hinted at by consumers hoping for the cutting edge of fetish fashion.

For those of you who doubt the feasibility, consider the cable-only channel Showtime has been airing a “reality program” called “Gigolos.” I haven’t seen it (I don’t have extended cable), but there is an episode from last year that you can find by doing a Google search on “Cock cage episode.” Seriously.

Here’s an interesting tidbit that you’ll find: Jimmy is asked to wear a cock cage, and the longer he wears it, the more he’s paid by a dominatrix.This episode aired last year.

Hah hah hah hah! Oh gosh, that’s so funny. Because, you know, with so many guys out there who seem to be begging to wear these devices, one of our gigolos manages to find the one domme in Las Fucking Vegas who can’t find a man to wear one for free, let alone who would pay her to hold a key.

There was a video of this part of the episode a few weeks ago, but it was apparently hosted on a Megaupload affiliate. But what I saw was a 20-something guy who was locked into a Curve. Of all the devices to portray, they picked the Curve. That’s right, a cable TV show featured a dominatrix who is paying a guy to wear what is arguably the bulkiest, ugliest,  most obtrusive, and least convenient chastity device on the market.

But that’s okay, because hey, it’s a chastity device on TV. Next year, maybe one will be on a more raunchy network show like Two and a Half Men, and a year later will pop up as a side plot on House. And when, one day your work friends are talking about the “kinky cock cage” that they saw on Big Bang Theory, you can give your hipster smirk and tell them that you  knew about those things before they went mainstream.

Ruin ALL the things!

So, Mrs. Edge has discovered ruined orgasms.

Not hers, of course.

She’s long been aware of the idea that some of my orgasms aren’t actually pleasurable, and over the years has, at times, been quite taken with the notion that she has some power over that. Generally this has taken the form of getting me aroused enough (usually after several weeks) to ejaculate while I’m still locked into my chastity device, but she has occasionally experimented with “forcing” me to release by using a vibrator on the device, or sometimes pressing the Hitachi directly on me. Both situations give me a sensation of slightly reduced arousal, which paradoxically seems to make me even more aroused the next day. I suspect that this is because after several weeks of arousal, my body is expecting to have an actual, mind-blowing orgasm; but when my brain checks in the next day, it sees that the tubes haven’t been properly cleaned. Or something.

Anyway, we haven’t been doing the chastity thing much this year, and since we have both been in pretty stressful job positions lately, our intimate life has suffered a bit. So, a few months ago I was suggesting some ways to spice things up a little, and among some of the ideas I floated were ruined orgasms when I’m not locked up. She didn’t explore the issue, and we went on to discuss other things; I figured she had forgotten about it. Until December, that is.

One night, we were laying in bed reading (we usually sleep nude), and she reached over and began stroking me. This is always a welcome surprise, so I asked her to use some lube or cream, and if she would consider finishing me that way. She grabbed a bottle of hand lotion and continued to stroke and tease me, until I was writhing on the bed and lightly (very lightly — damn kids around) moaning. As soon as I was ready to come, my hips lifted off the bed in expectation, and and she stopped stroking as I felt her grip tighten firmly around my shaft. My hips bucked a few times, and my moans turned into a groan of surprised frustration. And then it was over.

Ruin ALL the orgasms!

“You’re frowning,” she said, looking at my face. Yeah, no kidding, I thought. She went to get a towel, and when she came back she said “I don’t think that I did it right. You’ve got come on you.” Yes, some had leaked out after she let go, which is to be expected. I cleaned up, thanked her, and we drifted off to sleep with murmurs of needing more practice. The next morning I was quite hard, and woke her up for a little action. Despite being aroused, I didn’t feel the need to come, so I left her to go back to sleep for a few hours.

A couple of weeks later, we were in the same situation; she was stroking me, and I asked her if she wanted to practice a little more. She thought it was a good idea, so we grabbed some lube, and within a few minutes she had me very aroused. While she stroked me, I tried to explain that instead of just wrapping her fingers around me, that she might have better control pressing her thumb along the underside, closer to the base of my shaft. Knowing that the urethra passes closer to that area, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Mrs. Edge knows what I like, and after a little while I had to stop talking. Well, it was more like she had gotten me to the point where I was just babbling, anyway. And once again, just as I arched my hips I felt her squeeze, and her thumb bore down HARD. I felt my hands scrabbling at the sheets as my PC muscles tried to contract. I let out a small groan of frustration, and a few moments later it was all over. When she finally relaxed her grip, just a few drops leaked out.

“How was that?” she asked me. I had a hard time answering, in part because I was in some odd state of mind. The immediate need to come was gone, but nothing felt right; as far as my body was concerned, it wasn’t over over. On her part, she was again a bit disappointed to have allowed a few drops to leak out, and I had to assure her that with everything that goes through the plumbing, a few drops was perfectly normal.

We’ve now been practicing a bit more often; I’ve been agreeing to refrain from orgasm during intercourse so she can practice on me right afterward. And like so many things with regard to sex, this is something that sounds so freaking hot when you’re aroused, but then seems like a really stupid idea when it comes to actually doing it. I mean, I don’t  know about you, but I like orgasms. I love the explosive release, and the warm satisfaction immediately afterward. What the hell is the idea of leading all the way up to that, and stopping just short?

Goddam brain is paying tricks on me.

When I can step outside of myself to watch, though, I enjoy seeing Mrs. Edge move from a more passive form of ruined orgasms (that is, the involuntary releases that I’ve had) to a more active role. Her intentional ruining is, to me, exciting to think about (at least, beforehand), and she, herself gets excited about “practicing” (as she calls it). I know that she enjoys feeling me orgasm completely when I’m inside her, but this new-found hobby is also giving her a nice thrill, and allows her to gently explore her feelings about control. So, as long as she’s willing, how could I possibly pass that up?

Not as transgressive as you think

There’s a fascinating article in today’s Salon Magazine about the new book by anthropologist Margot Weiss: “Techniques of Pleasure.” It’s an insightful look at the BDSM scene in San Francisco, and how in her perception, the scene has lost (or perhaps never had) the aura of being an edgy, taboo-breaking culture.

From the article BDSM: It’s not as transgressive as you think:

“The fantasy of the scene as a safe space of private desire justifies and reinforces certain social inequalities,” she argues. The truth, she says, is that S/M “depends for its erotic power on precisely these real-world relations, within which it is given form and content.”

This is something that I rarely see discussed anymore. Is the BDSM scene simply just one more way that “privileged” people play? Perhaps. Weiss states:

“On the one hand, SM is figured as outlaw: as transgressive of normative sexual values,” Weiss writes. “On the other hand, SM is dependent on social norms: practitioners draw on social hierarchies to produce SM scenes.” The mostly-white, mostly-middle-class community is itself an example of real-world social inequality: ”These [sexual] experiments are more possible and more accessible to those with class, race and gender privilege: heterosexual men playing with sexism, white bodies at a charity slave auction, professional information technology (IT) workers with several rooms filled with custom-made bondage toys.”

And speaking of toys:

Not everyone in the S/M scene can afford to buy all this stuff. In the same way that whiteness is normative, it’s in the center, there is this normative professional-class person who has the money and leisure time to devote to S/M practice, and that is the ideal for consumer capitalism.

S/M is not alone in this. This is just a way that communities based around sexualities work in the U.S. today. But S/M is also a really great example of this, and you can see what that does to the community. People have debates about toys: Are they destroying social connections, did it used to be more authentic? And how now you can just buy your S/M identity, and that creates a lot of anxiety for people.

Much more at the Salon article, and for those interested, here’s a link to the book “Techniques of Pleasure.”

A quick synopsis:

[Weiss] describes a scene devoted to a form of erotic play organized around technique, rules and regulations, consumerism, and self-mastery. Challenging the notion that SM is inherently transgressive, Weiss links the development of commodity-oriented sexual communities and the expanding market for sex toys to the eroticization of gendered, racialized, and national inequalities. She analyzes the politics of BDSM’s spectacular performances, including those that dramatize heterosexual male dominance, slave auctions, and US imperialism, and contends that the SM scene is not a “safe space” separate from real-world inequality. It depends, like all sexual desire, on social hierarchies.

And if you stop by the Salon article, take some time to read the lengthy list of comments.